Kirk Gibson's game-winning home run in the opening game of the 1988 World Series is one of the most memorable in postseason history. It gave the L.A. Dodgers a 5-4 win over the heavily favored Oakland A's in a series the Dodgers went on to win in five games.

TRIVIA FROM GIBSON GAME

Facts about Game 1 of the 1988 World Series:

Pop singer Debbie Gibson sang the national anthem, prompting NBC's Bob Costas to say, "So the Dodgers brought in Debbie Gibson, now if only they had Kirk Gibson."

ST. LOUIS  From 20 years ago, a broadcaster's stunned call still echoes through time, about the World Series home run that replays will never let die.

"The impossible has happened!" Vin Scully cried that night from Dodger Stadium, as Kirk Gibson limped around the bases.

Didn't it, though?

There have been roughly 800 home runs in the World Series, according to Elias Sports Bureau. None was quite like this one.

It was hit by a man who could barely walk.

A man who had spent much of Game 1 of the 1988 Series watching on television in the clubhouse, with ice on his battered right knee and screaming left hamstring, resigned to missing out.

A man who suddenly emerged from the tunnel to face the most feared closer of the era with a runner on base, two out, and his Los Angeles team behind Oakland 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth.

A man who had only one hand on the bat when it made contact with the full-count, backdoor slider from Dennis Eckersley, sending it into the right field bleachers of Dodger Stadium for a 5-4 miracle.

A man who, after that Hollywood ending, would never take another swing in a World Series. The underdog Dodgers would clinch the championship in five games without him. The roar for him that night would be the last October roar he would ever hear.

But 20 years later, he understands it will last forever.

"The swing and the result are unexplainable," Gibson said the other day, sitting in the dugout before a game in Busch Stadium, now a coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks. "Other than maybe to say it was destiny."

Let those who lived one of the World Series' most extraordinary moments stir the memories. Gibson and his manager, Tommy Lasorda. Eckersley and his manager, Tony La Russa.

The situation

Lasorda: "Every inning, I would go down and ask, 'How you feeling big boy?' He kept giving me two thumbs down."

Gibson: "In the eighth inning (the TV) spanned the dugout and Vin Scully says something to the effect, 'There will be no Kirk Gibson.' I got out of my chair and said, 'My ass.'

"I put a jock on, a pair of socks, a T-shirt. That was it. I had the bare minimum. I took a couple of swings. I started to kind of brainwash myself, that when I walked out there, there would be a very positive reaction from the crowd and I wouldn't hurt."

Lasorda: "Suddenly the clubhouse boy comes up and says, 'Gibson wants to see you.' "

Gibson: "I remember seeing Tommy waddling up from the dugout. I said, 'Yeah, I can go if you want me to.' He said, 'Damn right, I want you to.' "

Lasorda told Gibson to stay hidden and not get in the on-deck circle, so the A's would never know what was coming. Light-hitting Dave Anderson was on-deck, so Eckersley pitched around Mike Davis. Two out, Davis on, last L.A. chance, and Gibson suddenly appeared, like a rabbit out of Lasorda's Dodger cap.

Eckersley: "He's such a competitor. I wasn't real fond of him to begin with. Professionally, he was tough to like.

"I was like, 'Oh no, how long is this going to take for him to get to the plate? I was an anxious guy. I was in a hurry to get going.

"I wasn't afraid of Kirk Gibson because he wasn't himself. In our scouting report, he was an afterthought. Just don't throw him anything soft."

The at-bat

Gibson: "When the count went to 0-2, I had something I called my emergency stroke. I looked out at him and thought, this was a full emergency. I was just trying to survive."

La Russa: "If you look at the video, it shows the dugout and Dunc (pitching coach Dave Duncan) is going this way (hands up and pushing back). He wanted to finish Gibson off up and out over the plate with a fastball."

Gibson fouled off a couple, and the count eventually went full.

Gibson: "We had a scout, Mel Didier, and he had watched Dennis Eckersley for many years. He came up to me (before the Series) in his southern drawl, and said, 'Pardnuh, as sure as I'm standin' here breathin', you're goin' to see a 3-2 backdoor slider.'

"You can watch it (on the video). As soon as he comes set at 3-2, I called timeout and I step out of the box and I'm looking at him and hearing, 'Pardnuh, as sure as I'm standin' here breathin', you're goin' to see a 3-2 backdoor slider.'"

Eckersley: "First of all, I didn't get to 3-2 on too many hitters, so if (Gibson) wants to give the credit to the scout, that's OK. I'm the idiot who threw the crappy slider."

The home run trot

Gibson: "I was kind of a volatile personality, very intense. Because of that, I drew some criticism and people would say things about me, and my parents had tried to defend me. I would just tell them don't worry about. Our day will come.

"Between first and second base, I remember thinking, 'Here it is, you didn't have to say anything. You raised me right.' It was like, vindication right there."

La Russa: "The first reflection I had is still the one. I really thought it was a classic confrontation between two of the best competitors of our time. (Gibson) wasn't someone you call one of those Monday-Wednesday-Friday guys, and on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday you can't find them. If a guy like that had done it, it would have stung more."

Eckersley: "I knew it was out when he hit it. After that, it's all slow motion. I couldn't tell you what happened. I was in a daze. As I walked off the field, I could see people standing up, going ape. But it was quiet in my head. It was a nightmare.

"I was looking for eye contact from my teammates. I had this feeling, 'Isn't anybody going to look at me?' Not many did."

The aftermath

Lasorda: "That home run actually paralyzed them the rest of the series."

La Russa: "Paralyzed is a strong word. I think it shocked us."

Gibson: "I know it bugs (Eckersley) that it happened. But he's certainly topped me by going into the Hall of Fame. He knows I respect him and I know he respects me. I think we totally understand each other. It happened off the right guy."

Twenty years later

Lasorda: "I get tears in my eyes when I see it again. It still affects me."

La Russa: "Every time I see it come on, I turn away. I've seen it enough."

Eckersley: "I get numb to it. It's like that's not even me.

"Time heals everything. When I look back and all is said and done, I saved more than 300 games since that moment. And we won it the next year. If that had been my only chance to win the World Series, I'd kick myself in the ass.

"All I can say is Kirk Gibson will have fond memories of that dinger but I'm in the Hall of Fame. I'll take the Hall. He can replay that home run until the cows come home."

Gibson: "I personally named the seat (where it landed) Seat 88. Whenever I walk into Dodger Stadium I immediately look out there.

"You ask me if it's been good, damn right it's been good. There was a perception of me, and I earned it because I was really intense, really gruff. I treated certain people poorly at times. It was because of who I was. It was almost my strength. I came in all business. I tried to find ways to fit in with that demeanor, but it's not easy.

"Now here I am almost 52 years old, it's really easy. I'm way more at peace. But when you're a competitor, and you're as intent on becoming the best in the world as I was, it comes with consequences."

Before he was a Dodger, Gibson was a Detroit Tiger. When he left Detroit in 1987, he said the owner called him a "disgrace."

"When I left Detroit there were two pages in the paper of good riddance.

"For all the people who didn't know who I was, the 20 years since then, they do know. ... With a lot of my failures and a lot of things I wasn't in this game, I feel fortunate and happy that I could give something back to it."

The home run ball

Ranking as one of the sport's great memorabilia mysteries, it has never been located.

Gibson: "But the bat has."

He just won't say where it's kept.

"It's where I want it to be. I also have the uniform. And the memory."

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